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Zhongchen’s brother gave us a box of doughnuts from Mister Donut. I never liked doughnuts much when I was a kid. Those I had back then were very sweet. The ones from Mister Donut are alright. They were surprisingly not as sweet as I expected them to be. I had one doughnut and one petit chou before I took photos. I didn’t know what the small ones were supposed to be but the website says that they are petits choux. I didn’t bother to take a close-up photo because they didn’t taste like petits choux that I’ve eaten in Mauritius. They tasted just like the doughnuts. Nothing special about them. I had another doughnut a couple of hours later and Desmond still won’t eat the doughnuts. Why? Because he doesn’t feel like eating doughnuts right now. Argh. How can anyone resist? Then again, he never liked sweet food. I told him that the doughnuts aren’t as sweet as they look but he still won’t eat them. Guess who will eat all the doughnuts? Well I’m not complaining.

The box of doughnuts.

The address and website url was on the box. According to the website, there are 5 Mister Donut in Shanghai. The addresses & mini-maps are all on the website which also mentions which bus or metro line to take. However the website is in Chinese only.

The doughnuts. (minus the doughnut and the petit chou that I had already eaten when I took this photo.)

I never knew that ‘doughnut’ could also be spelled ‘donut’ too. I’ve always written it as ‘doughnut’ since I was a kid. While I was eating, I was looking at the box. I know that doughnut is 甜甜圈 (tian tian quan ) or 炸面圈 (zha mian quan) in Chinese but what caught my eye about the box was the Chinese name for Mister Donut,美仕唐纳滋. Doughnut/donut=唐纳滋(tang na zi) as well?

I wrote this 2 days ago but then my old computer suddenly froze and restarted by itself a couple of minutes later. I didn’t save a copy so I’m now writing the whole thing again. -_-
The weather isn’t very good today and I’m feeling a bit sick because of the sudden drop in temperature. I have nothing to do today except for watching 6 (or is it 7 already?) episodes of Heroes 3 and munching on an egg tart but first, I’m going to finish with this blog entry.

So far, I went shopping only once since I came back to Shanghai last month. Well I bought a few things online as well but that doesn’t really count. Nothing beats going shopping in person.

One of the places where most people in Shanghai must have gone to do shopping at least once is Qipu Road (Qipulu). I’ve been in Shanghai since 2004 but I still don’t know the names of the buildings there. Everyone just know this area as Qipu Road. If you know where to look, you can get anything (clothes,shoes,bags,hats,belts,etc) ranging from very bad quality to very good quality there. Girls like to go there but the guys I know don’t really like the place. Most of the things there are for girls.
Deenoo’s wife,Rosie is in Shanghai since September and she will be here for a few years I guess. Anyway, she wanted to go shopping at Qipu Road and Karina was taking them there. I went along too.

There were many people buying bags outside. The quality is so and so but if you like to change bags very often, then those RMB 29 bags are great.

I didn’t take any photos inside the buildings. After getting my purse stolen there last year, I’m very careful with my things now.

One of the things I like to do there is to eat. I’m always famished after walking around there for hours.

Those two girls were having some kind of noodles.

Karina and I bought squid skewers. It’s one of my favorite street food in Shanghai.
I want to try baby octopus skewers one day but I’m a bit scared. haha

There were people cleaning but the place was still a bit dirty. After years here, I don’t mind eating in such an environment but I know some people who refuse to eat in ‘dirty places’.

Deenoo, Rosie, Karina and me.
We saw some African guys from Tongji University there and Deenoo happens to know them. One of them kindly took this photo for us. My blue AF top looks weird here. I was in a hurry to leave and just wore the first top I saw. It is supposed to be off the shoulder but it won’t stay horizontal & kept slipping down. That’s what happens after too many washes in the washing machine. Rosie kept pulling my top up but it kept falling down again. I told her not to bother with it. That’s the RMB 29 bag I bought. Rosie bought the same one too. I bought it because it’s big and I was going to put all the things that I buy inside but in the end, I only bought around 4 or 5 things. That’s a first for me.

I had dinner with Biliana, Asif,Aki and Desmond that evening at 1001 Nights restaurant. Nice food but the place was too dark for me to take good photos of food. The only photo I took is of Aki’s stitch. Desmond reckons that it doesn’t look anything like Stitch but Aki likes it.

I like this photo because of the candle. There were candles on each table and Desmond lit this one.

It is getting warmer and warmer. We can finally say goodbye to winter and enjoy spring (which came a bit late.. )

This will be my second and last entry about Shanghai winter 2008.
Note: More than 20 pics in this entry

It snowed for a few more days after my last update about snowing in Shanghai. In fact, we had about a week of snow here. Shanghai didn’t look the same. The first few days were great! I was in a wonderful mood each time I went out and saw everthing covered with snow but after 4 consecutive days like that, it started to get annoying and I kept wishing that it would stop snowing.

In fact, there was so much snow that I was able to make a snowman. :laughing: My first ever snowman! Well I didn’t make it by myself. Desmond and I walked in front of the soccer field that day at around noon and saw this:

Snow-covered soccer field

Some people were already making snowmen. It looked fun! We decided to make one too but first, we hurried to the dorms and knocked on our friends’ doors to ask them to join us. Some of them were still sleeping so it was only at around 3 p.m that we started on our snowman. By then, the snow on the ground was already melting.

Working on our snowman
We used an empty plastic cup for the nose, orange peel for the mouth, leaves for the hair and the eyes,a branch,etc.

Desmond working on the snowman’s hand to add the V sign simply because euh.. we are in Shanghai. To those who are not familiar with it, I’ll just say that anyone who has been to China and who has Korean or Japanese friends do that V sign at least once when taking pics.

Laughing at our snowman.
The head looked so strange.

Two Chinese guys came while we were busy making the snowman and started taking pics of our chef-d’oeuvre (*cough*) and us. It felt so weird having strangers openly taking pics of us like that. The 2 guys stayed until we left the soccer field after we got tired from the snow fight and all. Desmond left his number and email address with the guys, asking them nicely if they could send us some of the pics that they took of us and one of them really sent us the pics.

Group pic with the snowman. See the v sign?
One of the Chinese guys took this pic for us.

~The soccer pose~
Free kick! Usha shoots!
Guys: We need to protect our private parts. Karina: I want to join too! :laughing:
Check out the snowman goal-keeper and the tracks made by the snow ball that we rolled around to make the body of the snowman
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This winter , it has snowed several times already but it was too little to be worth mentioning. However, yesterday’s snow was quite heavy for Shanghai. I say that it’s quite heavy snow for Shanghai because it doesn’t snow much here in winter. The only other time I experienced such snow here in Shanghai was on Dec. 30th and 31st 2004. (Old post & pics about it here) Yesterday’s snow was heavier. Perhaps it felt that way because I was outside in the snow longer than in 2004.
I went to meet some of my Mauritian friends at 2 p.m to go to Hong Kong plaza and despite carrying an umbrella, my jeans, boots and bag were all covered with snow because of the wind. Being from a country where winter is around 15 °C and hence never snows, we were all happy that it was snowing. :laughing: The only problem is that in Shanghai, the snow melts too quickly, which is probably why I’m down with a cold now. My clothes got a bit wet yesterday.
Two pics that I took yesterday:

The snow stopped after a few hours yesterday but it snowed again early this morning. I didn’t go out this morning but Desmond, who went to drop off a French guy at the Hongkou stadium at 5:30 a.m came back and showed me the snowball that he made. He also told me that the road was very slippery. The taxi driver wasn’t happy at all.

Desmond holding the snowball

He could have made a much bigger one but he wanted to go back inside the building asap.

Sushi was fascinated by the snowball. She was a bit scared of it at first but once it started melting a bit (or rather,a lot. The ball became much smaller by the time Sushi was willing to get near it.), she started licking the ball but stopped once the cold got to her. :laughing:

She pounced on the ball and then ran away from the ball. She did that a few times before we finally threw away the ball. :laughing:

It has been quite cold today. It doesn’t feel cold when it snows but after the snow, when the snow starts to melt or has finished melting, it feels very cold. I looked out of the window just now. All the snow has melted already and the ground is wet. Brrrrrrrrrrrrr ………… It feels very cold. Now I’m trying to decide whether to brave the cold, go out to have dinner or stay home and cook noodles or something. I’m definitely not a winter person. (unless if it’s the winter in Mauritius!! hehe) According to weather.com, right now ” it is 1°C but it feels like -3°C ” . It doesn’t sound like much to people who are from countries where winter is below 0 °C but for me, it’s COLD.

-edited to add the following-
I didn’t go out so dinner was noodles indeed.
Looks good huh? It tasted great! Prepared by…… Desmond. Yeah, not me. Those who know me personally won’t find it surprising.

BUT…. I fried the fish!
It didn’t look appetizing at first so I used the leftover lamb curry (cooked by Desmond yesterday) to pour on the fried fish. Hence, the fish tasted like lamb but it was still good.
ta daaaa!

I went to the IKEA in Shanghai for the first time today. I’ve always wanted to go there. I asked someone about IKEA in the past. That person told me that it’s very troublesome to go there from Tongji University ,must take taxi, it’s far..bla bla bla….. Recently, one of my classmates told me that she accompanied a friend to IKEA. Out of curiousity, I asked her how she went there. It turns out that it’s quite easy to get there after all!

Kailash, Desmond and I went there today. We bought a few things but what I liked most was the food in the restaurant inside IKEA. This explains why I only took pics of the food.
I love the Swedish meat balls! hehe . We bought a large portion. I think it was like 25.50 yuan for 20 meatballs and some fries. The salmon dish that we had was okay too but I prefer the meat balls! hehe

The yummy Swedish meat balls!!

The Salmon dish. I don’t remember the exact name.

We made the ‘mistake’ of buying two small bottles of mineral water (330ml) there at 3 yuan each, only to find out that there’s also soft drinks and coffee. We just need to tell the cashier that we want a glass of pepsi (or any other soft drinks). She’ll add it to the bill and give you an empty glass. If we want coffee, then we’ll get a coffee cup instead. After paying, we can go to the self-service drinks section and choose what we want. The soft drinks are 5 yuan and the coffee is 6 yuan, unlimited refills.
I don’t know when I’ll go there again. We spent about 4 hours there today and it was tiring.

Ah… and Happy winter hols to me! :party: I’m on hols since the 16th. I was so tired from sleeping 3-4 hours every day during the exam week and the week before that I mainly stayed home to sleep during the past few days. I slept until 7pm the other day. Euh, don’t ask me how I did that.

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*edited this post to add*

How to get to IKEA from Tongji University (main campus) :
Take bus 115 or 515 (The bus stop is on Chifeng Road, near the xinjiang restaurant) and get off on the 2nd stop. Walk a few mins to Chifeng Road Metro Station. Take Line 3 to Caoxi Road. Get out of the station (we chose Exit 3), walk a bit, cross the road and that’s it. IKEA.
Taking a taxi to go there is another option for those people who don’t mind spending some extra money.

IKEA (Shanghai) address: No.126 CaoXi road

My camera went kaput again, showing me that annoying memory card error message when I switched on my camera. I almost reached for the screwdriver like last time but before that, I shook the camera a bit and gave the bottom a few taps. And… it’s working again.
Now that the photos have been transferred to my computer, I can write about my Christmas.

All the students in my faculty (the students are all international students) got 3 days off for Christmas (24th ,25th and 26th Dec). :party: As for the other faculties (Chinese students and a few international students), the students had to go to class. No hols for them.
Unlike the past few years, we didn’t have a Christmas show in International Students Building 1. Usually, Mrs Pei who organizes activities for the international students would be going from class to class, trying to get students to sign up for the Christmas show. The students would be the ones performing during the show. With exams coming up 2-3 weeks after Christmas, I’ve always thought that the timing wasn’t right. This year, there was surprisingly nothing to be heard about a Christmas show.
Instead, all the people from our faculty got a free lunch at the restaurant on the 2nd floor in International Students Building 1 as a late Christmas treat. Most of us never go there on normal days because the food is much more expensive than at the canteen which is right below the restaurant.
What was on every table when we entered the restaurant at noon:

The dish with the cherry on top was kinda weird. The bottom layer was tasteless, the middle layer was a bit salty and the top layer was sweet.

They brought around 8 more dishes after that, including dessert. Half the people at my table had already left when they brought the last 3 dishes. We didn’t know that there was going to be that many dishes. We were all full already. Pic taken halfway through the meal:

This sweet and sour fish was brought to the table when many people had left the restaurant already. Fortunately, my friends and I were still in the restaurant. This was good. Yummy. My camera was out of battery by then so no pics of desserts.

The Head and Vice-head of our faculty went from table to table during the meal, wishing everyone a Happy New Year in advance. When they came to our table, the Vice-head called me by my name. I didn’t know that the vice-head knew who I was. I wonder what goes on in those faculty meetings. He said : “You already have HSK 8,right?”. I said yes. The Head of the faculty then said to the rest of the people at my table that HSK 8 is part of the requirements to be able to graduate and encouraged them.

Note: Entry has been edited on the 29th to add the 3 above pics. There are 13 more pics in this entry.
Warning :Long entry.
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I’m still waiting for my friends to mail me the pics taken during the school trip. Meanwhile, let me introduce my little darling to everyone.

She is Sushi (or Susie,according to Aki but I don’t like the name Susie much), my puppy since almost a month now. Well,she’s not really only mine. She also belongs to my friends. We bought her together. We aren’t sure how old she is but according to the vet, she is around 2 months old now. As for her name ,Sushi, it took us a long time to decide on it. She almost became ‘Oreo’. We might change her name again because she seems to respond more when called Oie or Baka (my Jap friends call her like that sometimes because she does stupid things). Erm… we’ll see.
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It has been raining because of the typhoon. Now the weather is great again. Well, almost. It’s not raining anymore but there’s now a sudden drop in temperature. I slept till almost 11 a.m today (I can’t believe I did that! Argh. Missed 2 classes ) and when I went out during the afternoon, I wore a short-sleeve top. I felt the cold as soon as I stepped out of the building. Brrrrrr. It’s even colder at night. It’s high time to get the long-sleeve tops and jackets out of my suitcase. Most people on the streets were wearing long sleeves…

(I snapped that pic in a hurry and using my phone… My digital camera seems to be ‘dead’. More about that later….)